Menu

Month: July 2012

I managed to finish one of my road projects here in Austin, and here it is! This is Anne Hanson’s Butternut Scarf in Sanguine Gryphon Gaia Lace. As you may recall, I snapped up one of the very last skeins of Gaia Lace in existence when SG announced the end of their studio, because I loved it so much from my experience knitting Jackie E-S’s Shallow Sideways Tri-Shawl. The colorway is called “Cornflower,” and I love it to pieces. It’s a pale blue with lowlights and highlights that give it a shimmering movement which reminds me — especially when paired with such a sinuous lace pattern — of flowing water. So I’ve named this scarf after Austin’s Guadalupe River, in which Pat and I have spent a lot of time floating and drinking beer these last two months.

Isn’t it gorgeous? This is a pattern that I’ve tried several times, but I never was satisfied with it until now: once I tried it with a fingering-weight handspun yarn, which was too bulky for the motif, and once I tried it with a highly variegated yarn whose color-changes interfered with the pattern’s vertical movement. It’s a very simple, intuitive pattern, but it really needs a laceweight solid-color yarn in order to shine, and I’m glad I was finally able to do it justice.

It’s not the greatest of scarf shots, but here’s an amusing picture for you:

That’s me and Cesar Chavez, on the campus of UT Austin. I’m trying sort of poorly to imitate his pose.

Aaand here’s some yarn from my beloved Hill Country Weavers, which I will miss when we go back to California this week:

I “had to” take another trip there last week to get some Eucalan samples so I could block my scarf, and they’d just gotten in Hazel Knits yarn for the first time, and I nearly fainted dead away — I’d never seen it in person before, and it’s gorgeous. The middle three skeins are Piquant Lite in the “Nickel” colorway; it’s a 90% superwash 10% nylon blend. I’m sure it’s a wonderful sock yarn, but as you can probably guess from the quantity, I have more than socks in mind. I bought these planning to knit Laura Chau’s Matcha Cardigan from her beautiful new Afternoon Tea collection, but just this week I was blindsided by Cecily Glowik MacDonald’s new Landing collection and I realized that this would also be enough yarn to knit River Crossing. When we get back to California I’ll probably swatch for both and see what the yarn tells me. The skein on the left is Hazel Knits Entice in the “Shady Verdant” colorway, a 70/20/10 superwash merino / cashmere / nylon blend and it’s heavenly to touch. Some leafy design is in its future! The skein on the right is from an independent dyer I’d never heard of before: Alisha Goes Around. The colorway doesn’t seem to have a name, but I’m in love: it’s a dark purple that leans into blue in some places. The yarn is called “75 / 25 Falkland & Nylon Fingering,” which is exactly what it says on the tin.

Pat and I have loved Austin and we’re sad to leave, but we’re also a little bit excited to get out of this barren sublet apartment and back to the comforts of home. See you on the flip side!